


home is such a lonely place

by judlane



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol, Alive Noah, Alternate Universe, Drug Use, Found Family, M/M, Multi, Noah Czerny is a Little Shit, Polyamory, Street Racing, Trans Character, trans noah czerny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9805361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judlane/pseuds/judlane
Summary: His Mustang roars as Noah presses hard on the accelerator and the boy whips his shaved head to look at him. He’s handsome, all strong jaw and long eyelashes and bad boy scowl. He looks like he fights with his knuckles and spits blood out of his teeth. He looks like he does dangerous things and Noah has always been fond of dangerous things.





	1. i let her down, let her down i no longer dream

**Author's Note:**

> so basically in this AU: noah is sent out away from his fam for reasons that will be explained/talked about, the gangsey is basically the same as it was in like the second book or so... this story is really self-indulgent because i love my son and i miss him so so so much. noah is the same age as the gangsey.
> 
> chapter title: she's out of her mind - blink 182

When Noah wakes up, his head feels like someone poured ice cubes in his skull and flipped the switch to spin cycle. He groans, sitting up slowly in the backseat of his car, one hand pressed to his forehead and the other on the front seat for leverage. His left leg is asleep from where it lays trapped under a flimsy cardboard box named _clothes n shit_ and his skin sticks to the leather like glue, but compared to his throbbing brain, they’re just slight commodities.

 _I’m going to be sick_ , Noah thinks as he rights himself and opens the car door behind him so he can heave onto the grass on the side of the road.

Virginia grass looks strangely similar to Maine grass, with or without throw up.

Once he’s emptied his stomach and popped a few pills dry, Noah slides himself into his Mustang’s front seat and cranks up the engine. It thunders awake and, despite his queasy stomach, Noah lets himself a grin and affectionate pat to the dashboard.

“Two more hours, then we’ll be home sweet home,” He says to which the Mustang responds in the squeal of tires on backwoods pavement.

Home sweet home is Henrietta, Virginia and ultimately an all-boys school named Aglionby. His father had pushed the thick envelope against Noah’s chest with fingers dripping in attitude and said, “Pack your things.”

Noah had packed. The necessities like his band posters and band t-shirts and his skateboard which all fit in four cardboard boxes that sat nicely on the backseat of his Mustang. His little sisters had wailed and cried and tried to bury themselves beneath the boxes, claiming that they were going with Noah and kicked with a such ferocity at their dad’s hands Noah had preened in pride. If there was something that ran in the Czerny family, it was disdain for their father’s decisions.

His mother had folded him into a tight hug and pressed tearful kisses against his too-large ears and made him promise to call and often. He told her he would - every night to tell her about his new life in an all-boy’s school fourteen hours away. He’d be lying to say he wasn’t nervous. Not about the drive, he’d done longer on sleepless nights after fights with his dad, but the all-boy’s aspect. It was a shivering nervousness, something that hummed in his bones _finally, finally_ but also made his stomach hard to tame as it rolled fretfully.

Noah had ignored his father and his father did the same to him. Instead, Noah had sprawled out in the backseat with his two wailing sisters and held them to his chest and sang soft Blink-182 lyrics until they calmed down. It was a good hour before he could extract them from his leather seats and another before they finally let go of his damp shirt. They also made him promise to call, and then began to cry again when Noah crossed his heart and hoped to die.

When Noah had finally gotten on to the road, two hours later than he was meant to, the rumble of his engine sounded much more like the chanting of _freedom, freedom, I’m free._

He spent the first twelve hours driving fast down the highway, howling along to his playlists until his voice rasped and his tears dried. He took a small break in a dinky diner and drank four cups of chocolate milk and played five dollars worth of songs from the jukebox just because he could. Noah realized, with a start, that he could basically do anything he wanted now.

Noah had coasted off the highway as the night grew darker so he could cruise down the backwoods roads, all the windows down and cooling Virginia air on his skin. When he finally grew tired enough, he simply pulled off the road, pushed the boxes to the front, and curled up in the backseat.

He’d texted his mom and sisters, one message reassuring he was sleeping in a hotel for the night and the other claiming that he was being held hostage by a herd of deer so he was forced to hide in his car.

His mother responded with a _Good, I love you._

His sisters responded with a _wiggle ur ears u speak their language_

The two hours passed quickly as Noah drove, his headache still lurking just at the base of his skull, but the excitement was thrumming in his veins. The Blue Ridge mountains loomed to his left and Noah snapped a few photos to send to his family, and got a few stern messages from his mom to _put your phone away while driving_ and the other from his sisters asking if he was being taken to the deer’s layer.

His excitement very quickly melted into sickening nervousness when he passed a weathered Welcome to Henrietta sign and then, as he drove farther into the town, the looming gates of Aglionby Academy.

 _You can do this_ , Noah thinks as he finds a parking space which isn’t too hard considering it’s a Saturday. He’s two days early before the official moving in day, but the Headmaster had been happyto meet Noah before the other students got settled, considering Noah was a ‘special case’.

Noah didn’t like that. He didn’t want to be a special case or have special treatment or a room just to himself or be exempted from required exercise classes. He just wanted to be Noah Czerny who liked to skateboard and listened to punk music.

The inside of the school was just as grand as the outside was. All ancient sloping walls and rich dark wood doors and the air of _I’m important because I have a lot of money._

“I must presume you are Noah Czerny, am I correct?”

Noah jumps at the sudden voice behind and turns to see a man who definitely looks like he uses words like _presume_ or _must_ in every day conversation.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Noah responds, scratching at the back of his neck.

The man raises one eyebrow like he was expecting Noah to instead speak like a character out of a Shakespeare play. He nods once and offers his hand. It’s a little damp when Noah shakes it and resists the urge to wipe his palm off against his jeans.

“I am Headmaster Child, pleasure to meet you. Your father informed me of your - condition and I want to reassure you that Aglionby Academy is accommodating to all ranges of boys so I hope you find yourself content.” Child said condition like it left a bad taste in his mouth but was trying to be polite. “If you will follow me, we can get your uniform in order and I can show you to your room.”

Noah forces a smile onto his face. “That would be great, thank you.”

Headmaster Child asked him of his hobbies and then talked about the clubs that Noah could join or what their academic expectations were and how to be an asset to the community. Noah smiled and nodded and took note of how smooth the floors were and wondered if he could get away with skating to class.

Noah got his uniform, a stuffy assemble of clothes that he would rather be caught dead in, and then Child showed him to his room. It was a single, something his father had no doubt paid extra for to accommodate Noah’s 'condition'. Anger crackled just under Noah’s skin but he pushed it down with a polite smile and fake laugh to the Headmaster’s rambling.

“Do you need help unpacking, Mr. Czerny?” Headmaster Child asks but his feet were already taking him to the door.

Noah tosses his uniform onto his single bed and internally grins when he sees the slightest twitch of lips in disdain. “No, I’ve got it. Thank you very much for your hospitably.”

Child puffs up at that and nods once, and then was gone in a flurry of squeaky clean dress shoes.

Noah groans and throws himself onto his bed beside his uniform which he deftly kicks off. Everything was too stuffy and too subdued and it was suffocating. Noah lives off of freedom and howling and making rash decisions. He drank beer and broke the bottles and hurled the shards into the air. He smoked until the nicotine made him queasy and then drank until he actually did vomit.

At his other private school, the kids there had followed Noah like a bunch of fumbling puppies and Noah loved it. He loved getting in trouble and the exasperated looks on the teacher’s faces and the admiration on his peer’s.

“ _Czerny’s in the office again,_ ” they would whisper and everyone would just nod like that was where Noah belonged because God knows that where he spent most of his schooldays.

But here?

The boys probably said ‘may’ instead of ‘can’ and ‘pleasure’ instead of ‘thank you’. It was going to drive Noah insane trying to find a few individuals that would be down to get gravel burns on their knees or hotbox his mustang while blasting his playlists.

For a moment, Noah wishes he was back home. And then he thinks of his dad and his anger and the _do you even consider the embarrassment this is going to cause me_ and he's suddenly very glad of where he was.

Noah sighs deeply and rolls onto his stomach, kicking off his shoes in hopes they would land on his uniform somewhere on the ground. He buries his head into his arms.

He might as well as sleep while he still could.

 

\--

 

A month into his classes and Noah had found a friend. Coincidentally, Barrington Whelk lived across the hall from Noah, also in a private room, not for any special reason other than he disliked sharing space with another person. He's taller than Czerny with broader shoulders but a young looking face with big doe eyes and short black hair. He carries himself like the school would come to a standstill if he was bedridden for even a day and talks to other boys very much like Headmaster Child had talked to Noah that first day. At first, Noah resented the other boy for his condescending attitude, but one day, while Noah listened to his music and stared out the window, the other boy had sidled up to him and swiped one earphone to put in his own ear. 

He had smiled, big and slow and his doe eyes had crinkled. “I love Bowling for Soup. What’s your favorite song?”

They struck up a weird friendship - most other boys skirted around Czerny because he drove a loud red Mustang and blasted his music and ate sour straws every class. But once Whelk had deemed Noah worthy of his friendship, they flocked to him. It was a nice change from how lonely Noah had been at the start, even if him and Whelk sometimes would get an argument over the smallest of things like what song is the best off a certain album.

He called his mom and sisters like he promised and most of the time ended up crying, just for the sake of how much he missed them. He often would sneak out of his dorm and rev up his Mustang. He would drive fast and loud and cry until he felt tired enough to sleep.

This was one of those nights. Whelk was off doing something or someone else and Noah was just getting off the phone with his mom when he felt the surge of panic curl hotly in his diaphragm. His body is a cage that is growing smaller and smaller with each breath and he just needs to get out.

He throws his covers off, stuffs his socked feet into shoes, and runs to his car.

The engine hurtling under Noah’s body grates hard against his panic, and he pushes the accelerator down harder. He takes turns sharply and runs a few stoplights just because he can and wants to. He’s half-hoping that a cop would swing out of nowhere so that Noah could have a reason to be nervous about something else. But either Henrietta lacks crime to not have a police force or the cops just don’t give shit because Noah hasn’t see a single one.

He’s coming down from his high as he slows to a stoplight beside a sleek BMW. It looks more like a shark than a car and the boy at the wheel looks just as dangerous.

Noah knew that car was meant for racing so he’d get it to race.

His Mustang roars as Noah presses hard on the accelerator and the boy whips his shaved head to look at Noah. He’s handsome, all strong jaw and long eyelashes and bad boy scowl. He looks like he fights with his knuckles and spits blood out of his teeth. He looks like he does dangerous things and Noah has always been fond of dangerous things.

The BMW snarls back, much more smoother than the roughness of Noah’s Mustang, but that only fuels his excitement. He has no doubt that he’s going to be creamed, but he honestly doesn’t care as his car inches forward to be inline with the BMW’s nose.

Noah grins at the boy and the boy smirks back, and then the light is green.

The two cars squeal and surge together, even in the first couple of seconds. But the BMW is pulling ahead, just like Noah knew it would, but he’s laughing loud and his anxiety has long since been left at the light. The BMW inches farther ahead and Noah cheers it on, beating his hand on the wheel and pushing the Mustang to its limits before he finally lets it rest. The BMW’s taillights disappear up ahead and Noah coasts to a stop at another red light.

It had only lasted a few seconds, but Noah feels better than he has in a long, long time.

 

\--

 

Noah thinks about the BMW boy a lot. He goes out at night, even when he isn’t having a panic attack, in hopes of racing again, but for the last three weeks the streets have been empty.

So Noah took to practicing his shifting and his pacing and turning hard. He’s spun out a few times, once dangerously close to a telephone pole and he had spent twenty minutes apologizing to the Mustang for his recklessness.

Slowly, but surely, he was getting better and now his engine barely stuttered when he went from third to fourth. The first time he had done it he had thrown his head back and howled loud enough a dog howled back.

Noah tried to get Whelk to come along some nights and each time he was dismissed.

“I don’t have time for such useless acts,” Whelk would snidely say because that’s how he always spoke.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t even want you to come in the first place,” Noah would retort even though he was outside Whelk’s door at one AM and he had literally just invited him.

Whelk would look even more offended and slam the door.

Him and Whelk have been fighting more and more often, mostly due to Whelk’s arrogance and how it really fucking pisses Noah off.

But whatever.

Noah shoves another handful of sourpatch kids into his mouth and chooses noisily as he looks over his math homework. He had copied it off of some other kid after bribing him with a snickers bar but he just wanted to make sure the answers looked correct.

There are other raven boys in the room, clumped together as they snickered and talked, but they abruptly fell quiet as the door flung open.

Noah looks up out of curiosity of exactly who can shut up an entire room of raven boys and spills his sourpatch kids everywhere.

The boy from before slouches in the doorway, eyes lidded dangerously as he surveys the room.

Before he can catch himself, Noah stands up and shoots his hand in the air. “Beamer boy!”

The boy whips his head exactly as he did before, a shark smelling blood in the water, scowl pulling on his lips. He glares at Noah like he’s a disgusting species of worm and that only makes Noah grin wider.

The other raven boys look between the two of them with their mouths open and eyes wide, some even hissing “Shut _up_ , Czerny”.

Noah Czerny has never been very good at shutting up.

Noah waves excitedly to the empty desk in front of him, and the boy slowly walks over like a wolf sneaking up on a deer. He sits down and sprawls, but there's a tenseness to his shoulders as he looks at Noah.

“Want a sourpatch kid?” Noah asks, holding out his half empty bag and popping the ones that fell on his desk into his mouth.

The boy just stares.

“You’re Beamer boy right? Remember? Creamed a red Mustang three weeks ago? Like, I mean completely destroyed.”

The boy tilts his head and Noah can see the hint of a tattoo on the back of his neck. “Yeah, what about it? One of your friends or something?” He says it like he’s looking for a fight but Noah throws his head back and laughs.

“Nah, man, that was me! You left my ass in the dust,” Noah says.

Beamer boy’s eyebrows lift and he actually looks surprised at how easygoing Noah is. Noah just smiles wide again and eats some more sourpatch kids.

“Man, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I’ve been practicing so I can at _least_ lose within a mile radius of you. What do you say? Race? You and me? Tonight?” Noah wiggles his too-large ears.

Beamer boy smirks and slowly the tension drains from his shoulders. “Yeah, sure. What time?”

Noah fishes out his phone and plops on the desk. “I’ll just text you because my nightly skin care regime fluctuates on how petty I’m feeling. What’s your number?”  
Beamer boy tells him his number and even reaches out to sneak a few sourpatch kids. Noah pretends he doesn’t see.

“So you got a name or are you just going to be Beamer boy?”

“My name’s Ronan Lynch.”

Noah wipes his hand on his sweater before holding it out to Ronan who takes it slowly. He shakes it once, hard.

“Noah Czerny.”

 

  
\--

 

Noah is literally buzzing in excitement as he pulls on a coat and shoves his feet into his shoes. He’d sent Ronan a text thirty minutes ago about meeting where they did last time for their race, still no reply, but he couldn’t sit still any longer.

He steps out into the dark hall and turns to lock his door, cursing when the old keys stick slightly.

“Going out racing again, Czerny?” Whelk asks behind him. Noah nearly keels over in surprise, fumbling with the keys and whirling around.

Whelk, despite being snooty and rude, was a handsome boy even in the early dead morning hours. He leans against his door frame, simple shirt hugging his body and sweatpants low on hips. Noah drags his eyes to Whelk’s and pointedly ignores how his biceps look crossed over his chest.

“Yeah, I’ve got a date.”

Something ugly passes across Whelk’s face but then he’s stepping back into his room and closing the door. “Have fun. Don’t get in a wreck.”

Noah laughs over his shoulder as he heads down down the hallway. “Have a little faith in me, would ya?”

Whelk’s door clicking close is his answer.

 

\--

 

Noah pulls up to the BMW and rolls down his windows.

Electronic music is thudding out of Ronan’s car and he’s bobbing his head slightly to the music, eyes staring off into the disance. When he sees Noah, he taps his radio off and grins with sharp teeth.

“Ready to lose, Czerny?”

Noah laughs, loud and clear in the still night air. “I’ve been ready, Ronan.”

Ronan’s grin looks even more wild when the light turns green.

Noah is giddy as he hits the pedal and surges forward in tune with Ronan. He laughs again, this time bordering hysterical as his heart tumbles out of his chest. The Mustang stays with the BMW past two lights, and then it falls behind, inch by inch, and then all at once as Ronan slams into another gear and he’s gone.

Noah coasts over to the side of the road, chest heaving and face aching from smiling so wide. His hands are shaking on the wheel but there's an electric buzz to the air that makes him want to keep going, keep racing, to never leave the road.

The BMW comes hurtling back down the road, this time towards Noah. It really is a sleek beast, like it eats the road in front of it and the boy inside thrived off of the sheer fierceness. It squeals to a stop, driver side to driver side.

“Need a vomit bag, Czerny?” Ronan asks out his window. His eyes are wild and untamed and Noah wants to feel what he’s feeling.

“Actual wouldn’t be too bad of a thing to have,” Noah jokes back.

“Can’t imagine why. That thing is a piece of shit,” Ronan says but his eyes say _race me again._

“Hey man, don’t talk to my baby like that!” Noah runs a hand lovingly across the rear view mirror and Ronan rolls his eyes. “She would’ve creamed your ass back in her younger days.”

“Oh yeah, definitely, fifteen miles per hour really was fast back in the 1920s.”

Noah throws his head back and laughs. His chest feels light, like his heart is a hummingbird flinting in his chest. He realizes, that for once, he’s actually having a genuinely good time. And by the look on Ronan’s face, he is begrudingly also.

Noah knows his Mustang can’t handle another race in one night, so instead he leans his head out of his open window and wiggles his ears. “Want to go get some gelato with me?”

“At two AM?”

Fuck, was it already two?

“Everything is better at two AM,” Noah says proudly.

Ronan glances away from Noah and down the dark, empty road, and then back.

“Yeah, fuck, why not. You’re riding with me though. My ass is not getting in that prehistoric beast.”

Noah smiles all the time he sits in Ronan’s car and while they eat shitty convenience store gelato and when Ronan shows him how he shifts gears and when he drives slowly back to Aglionby.

He goes to sleep thinking about Ronan’s snark and the pavement flying underneath him.


	2. if i go to hell then i hope i burn well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from fire water burn by the bloodhound gang

Ronan Lynch was every part of the accomplice Noah had been longing for since coming to Aglionby.

After that night, they became a two-headed dog, always racing or skating or throwing beer bottles at the sides of buildings and howling with laughter. Ronan hardly ever came to class, and Noah found himself following his lead and spending his days riding around in the BMW instead of sitting in a desk. They bought whole tubs of gelato and ate them at the skate park until they got stomach aches or drank lukewarm beer in the middle of the day.

Whelk, however, was not pleased.

Noah found himself constantly on the end of a chiding whenever Whelk decided to grace him with his presence, like he currently was, lounging in Noah’s bed like a king and dark eyebrows furrowed in disdain.

“He’s a hoodlum, Noah. You have no business associating yourself with someone like Lynch,” He sneers, Lynch sounding much more like disgrace.

“It’s not business, Whelk, it’s called fun,” Noah groans in reply. He’s trying to do his homework on the floor, but Whelk won’t shut up. This is stupid. Ronan doesn’t do his homework and he still passes class. Or, at least, Noah thinks he does. He might be able to grow a beard like a thirty year old man, but Noah is pretty sure Aglionby has a limit on how many times someone can get held back.

“He’s bad news, Czerny. You’re just dragging your social status into the dumps. He’s always parading around with Gansey who wants to bone a dead Welsh king. Is that the type of friends you really want to be seen with?”

Noah wrinkles his nose. “Did you just say _bone?_ ”

Whelk covers his face with his hands and slowly drags it down. Noah snickers and abandons his homework in favor for jumping on top of him while he’s distracted.

Whelk grunts as Noah flops down and wiggles to get comfortable, but makes no effort to move away.

“Little Whelky is just jealous, huh? It’s okay, I like Ronan but you’re still my besties for the resties.”

“Please don’t refer to me as that.”

“Which part? Whelky or the resties?” Noah gasps, face lighting up in delight. “Whelky, my bestie for the resties.”

A hand digs into Noah’s ribs and he lets out a surprised laugh, and rolls off of Whelk to get away, shoving a pillow between them. Whelk turns onto his side so that he can face Noah, arm propping up his head and the other laying suspiciously still on the bed spread. Noah makes a note to keep an eye on it.

“You’re insufferable,” Whelk says.

“You’re insufferable,” Noah mocks, lowering his voice to imitates Whelk’s.

Whelk waves a hand flippantly and sighs, put on upon. “Anyways, I’m not jealous. I’m just attempting to help you as a fellow peer from thoroughly damaging your reputation. But if you want to continue to frolic around with Lynch, then be my guest.”

Noah rolls his eyes so hard he swears he can see the back of his head. “First, we don’t frolic around. We do cool shit like race cars or break things. Second, me and you aren’t peers. We’re friends, Whelk. Say it with me, friends.”

“You know what I’m talking about so there’s no need to use choice words like that.”

“Dude, come on, friends, just say it. You’ve been annoying the hell out of me since the day I got here. You’ve watched Teen Wolf with me. We do homework together and listen to music together. _Friends_.”

“I simply do those things because you’re across the hall from me and easy to access when I’m bored. Us sharing common interests is simply a perk.”

Annoyance tugs at Noah’s mouth. Easy to access? What the fuck was he, a library book?

“Yeah, whatever, look, I’m done with homework and I’m going to go hang out with Ronan.” He was actually only two problems deep with twelve more to go on his math homework and he had no plans that he knew of with Ronan, but Whelk didn’t need to know that.

Whelk shoots him a dirty look and stands up. He looms over Noah, and for a moment, there’s something about him that makes Noah want to shrink back and cower.

“There’s no need to get offended and lash out like a child, Czerny. Have fun hanging out with Lynch.” The door slams in its frame behind him. Noah buries his head underneath his pillow and flicks to his messages with Ronan, ignoring the swoop of guilt in his gut. Whelk was the one acting like a child, not him. They were friends.

_hey man u wnat to hang ?_

The reply came back moments later.

**With Gansey rn. Can swing by to pick you up if you want**

Noah had heard all about Ronan’s friend Gansey, either from Ronan himself or doting teachers and students. Apparently he was the epitome of the American scholarly boy with a kink for dead kings, but no one seemed to be hung up on that last part. It was whatever - everyone had their own little quirks, like Noah’s love for skating or Ronan’s racing.

_ye thatd b lit ty_

Noah rolls out of his bed and stuffs his feet into his converse, purposefully ignoring the half-done homework covering his floor. He locks the door behind him - and pauses.

His mother had always called him a softy, especially when it comes to arguments. He could last a couple hours tops with holding a grudge, but always ended up crying while he apologized even if it wasn’t his fault. So Noah hardly, if ever, got into fights - at least the verbal kind. The exception had been his dad who was fourteen hours away and no doubt relieved Noah was out of his hair.

With a deep sigh and some mumbling, Noah knocks on Whelk’s door. It swings open a few moments later.

Whelk levels him with a stern gaze and leans against the door frame.

“I’m on my way out to go hang with Ronan, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry, alright? You really are my best friend and I don’t want to fight with you.”

A look of surprise crosses Whelk’s face, like he had expected Noah to come up in arms, and then he smiles a little. It’s rare of him to smile, he’s mostly just looking like a disgruntled dad or pompous rich boy, but when he does, it makes Noah’s heart flutter. He really is attractive with his dark hair and doe eyes and the muscles are definitely a plus.

“I don’t want to fight with you either. I hope you can accept my apology as well,” Whelk admits, posture relaxing.

“You’re forgiven,” Noah immediately replies.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and Noah fishes it out to see Ronan’s **here fuckface.**

“I gotta go, Ronan’s here. When I get back we can hang, if you want.”

Whelk nods, once, and moves to shut the door.

“I’ll see you later… buddy.”

Noah crows for a whole minute outside of Whelk’s door to get him to say that again where he could record it and only leaves because of Ronan’s various threats buzzing in his pocket.

  
\--

Richard Gansey looks exactly how Noah had imagined him to be.

Tanned skin, blinding white smile, god-like jawline, perfect brown hair, and the worst fashion sense on the face of the Earth. Who the hell wears a salmon polo with mint green cargo shorts and Topsliders?

“Noah Czerny, I presume,” Gansey says once Noah’s situated in the middle back seat, hand held aloft in the gap.

Noah stares at it, at Gansey, and then Ronan who looks like he’s about to bust out laughing any moment.

Gansey suddenly looks flustered while his hand stalls in air. Before he can retract it, Noah grabs it and flips it up so he can high-five it.

“You presumed correctly, Gansey man,” Noah says and sits back. Gansey looks pleased with the high five and turns back around to face the front. “I got a question for you, by the way.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Is it true you bone dead Welsh kings?”

Ronan roars with laughter and the BMW jerks forward from a little too much gas as they pull away from Aglionby. The salmon shirt looks even more horrible as Gansey flushes.

“I - Where did you hear that?”

“My buddy Whelk told me that you bang ‘em. No judgment, I’d hit up a ghost if they were hot,” Noah states, grinning wildly as Gansey just turns darker and darker. At the mention of Whelk, his face twists into a displeased frown.

“You’re friends with Whelk?” Ronan asks.

“Yeah, we started out as music buddies and now we’re besties for the resties.”

“You don’t find him - insufferable?” Gansey asks a little too politely, like his tone would make up for the negative word choice.

Noah snorts at the irony and claps Gansey hard on the shoulder. “Oh yeah, he’s the fucking worst, dude.”

Ronan and Gansey share a look. Noah lets them try to mull it over and sits back so he can prop his shoes up on the glove box.

“So, like, do you only bone Welsh kings or is it any dead king you can get your hands on?”

\--

Monmouth Manufacturing is the home out of every wet dream Noah’s ever had. At first, when they pulled up to the building, Noah had thought they were going to get up to some hoodlum activities, but when Gansey walked inside and revealed that the second floor was poorly furnished, Noah had nearly keeled over.

“You live here?”

Gansey nods his head happily. “We both do. Ronan’s room is just down that hall.”

“Dude, this is the sickest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Noah says.

Gansey scratches at his head and looks sheepish. “Well - yes, the inside is a little stuffy but we haven’t contracted any serious illness in the time we’ve been living here, so I’d say it’s relatively safe.”

Ronan laughs, one loud bark and Noah can’t help but giggling too. Gansey looks between the two of them.

“I meant _sick_ as in _cool._ It’s a good thing, Gansey man.”

“Oh! Then, yeah it is pretty sick. But do you want to see something - sicker?” Gansey looks pleased with himself.

“I’m down.”

Gansey shows him the cardboard rendition of Henrietta and it really is ‘sicker’. It looks like countless of hours have been put into it. There’s even the smallest details added, like a small cardboard street lamp or potted plant sitting on a windowsill. Noah sits down in awe so he can get a closer look and glances up to see both Ronan and Gansey watching him like proud parents.

“This is really fucking cool. How long did it take you to do this?”

Gansey sits down beside him and Ronan follows suit. Noah can’t help but notice how quiet he is.

“Many sleepless nights. It gives my hands something to do,” Gansey laments, righting a slightly crooked roof.

Noah can understand that. “Same for me and driving or skating. When I can’t sleep, I go cruising around just to do something. That’s actually how I met Ronan.”

“He told me,” Gansey smiles over at Ronan who rolls his eyes.

“Did he tell you I totally destroyed him in street racing?”

Ronan glares at him. “You didn’t destroy me, fucker.”

“I totally did, Gansey. I even made him cry-” Noah howls when Ronan tackles him down, rolling them away from the cardboard town. Gansey laughs and it’s a tremendous thing, a genuine laugh from deep in his gut and not at all like Whelk’s fake half-scoffs.

Ronan puts Noah in a headlock until he cries uncle and then end up fighting again when Noah immediately tries to jump on his back once being freed.

They only stop when Gansey stands up. “I’ll be back in a moment, Adam is nearly done with work.”

“Adam?”

“He’s also our friend. Adam Parrish,” Gansey explains, face lighting up like a dog hearing the word treat.

“Does he fuck dead kings too?” Noah asks with a cheeky smirk and Ronan wraps his limbs around Noah and bends him in a way he really shouldn’t be bent. Gansey flushes again and then composes himself, tugging at the collar of his polo.

“I honestly don’t know how to answer that question,” Gansey says.

“You’re kinda supposed to say no, unless-”

“No! No, I thought - We are not necrophiliacs.”

“Aw, damn,” Noah mimes wiping a tear from his eye and Ronan twists his arm behind his back. Noah barely manages a bye to Gansey as he leaves before he’s being put in another headlock.

They lay lie that, sprawled out on the floor, Noah’s head trapped in the crevice of Ronan’s bicep and both breathing heavily. The situation is intimate in a way that makes Noah’s toes curl and he hides his flush in Ronan’s dark shirt. If he notices anything, he doesn’t acknowledge it out loud. Instead he tugs Noah, still trapped, up and drags him to the narrow hallway Gansey had gestured to.

When Noah sees a door covered in copies of speeding tickets, he cackles loudly.

“Shut up,” Ronan hisses and kicks his door open.

His room is messy in a boyish way - clothes thrown about, bed rumpled and unmade, a wide set TV framed by huge speakers. There’s other knit knacks - small things like CD cases and a snow globe and rubix cubes.

“CDs!” Noah cries and wiggles out of Ronan’s grasp to inspect the cases. “What genre?”

“Mostly EDM,” Ronan replies as he falls onto his bed.

“I like EDM sometimes. I listen to a lot of Blink-182 or Bowling for Soup or Bloodhound Gang.”

Ronan gives him a blank look.

Noah lets the CDs clatter to the floor “You don’t know them? Not even Blink-182? Bloodhound Gang?”

“Oh, now that you’ve repeated their names I suddenly recall!” Ronan cried, hitting the heel of his hand to his forehead.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m being serious. Fuck, hold on.” Music was not a thing Noah Czerny fucked around about.

Music had probably been the only thing that kept him from going completely ballistic on his dad. After their viscous fights, Noah would fill up his Mustang and blast his playlists, loud until his ears were ringing and his sadness was left somewhere far behind him.

He liked songs that were rough and angry and dumb. He liked lyrics that didn’t make sense and overpowering drums and guitars.

Noah goes to the music on his phone and eyes the giant speakers. Ronan catches on and grins his shark grin and pulls out an AUX chord. Noah hooks it up and hits [play.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7OvPTmhtiY)

The music blares out of the speakers and Noah roars in delight, jumping to his feet and onto Ronan’s bed. His skin buzzes with the sound and Ronan looks just as happy as Noah feels. He doesn’t even care that Noah’s jumping around on his bed with his shoes on. He just reclines and lets him wail the lyrics loud and throw himself against the door and bounce off it to hurtle back on to the bed.

Finally, when the song ends and Noah is out of breath, he collapses next to Ronan.

“What’d you think?”

“I think you’re a fucking spaz. The song was alright though.”

“Yeah? That’s my go-to vent song. You should see me at 3 AM with it playing.”

Ronan snorts and starts to chew on the leather bands around his wrist. Noah can’t help but notice the faint scars across his wrists but looks away when his phone begins to vibrate with an incoming call. He answers it after disconnecting the AUX.

“Yellow?”

“Czerny.”

“Whelk,” Noah imitates.

Ronan wrinkles his nose and starts gnawing on the leather more earnestly.

“I was thinking of watching a movie tonight, any suggestions?”

“Oh! How about something scary?” Noah absentmindedly reaches over and tugs Ronan’s wrist away from his mouth. His mother had always done the same when Noah bit at his nails.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can find. When do you think you’ll be coming back?”

“Uh - I’ll prob be back ‘round - eight? Nine?” Noah wipes Ronan’s spit off on his shirt.

“Alright. Bye.” The line goes dead and Noah rolls his eyes. Always so dramatic.

“How can you stand him?” Ronan asks suddenly. He looks intense, not angry or upset, just attentive.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think he’s a jerk?”

“I mean, yeah, but not all the time. He’s actually kinda nice sometimes.”

“I think he’s a total ass.”

“Okay, well, he’s also my best friend so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk shit about him,” Noah says curtly, curbing his anger. Ronan reclines onto his bed and frowns up at the ceiling.

“Whatever.”

A door slamming spurs them both into action.

Gansey is standing by the cardboard Henrietta with another boy. He’s slim in all the appealing ways, large hands and bespectacled with freckles. Exhaustion seems to radiate off of him, but when he spots Ronan he offers a small half smile. Interesting, Noah notes.

“Adam, this is Noah Czerny.”

To Noah’s horror, Adam, like Gansey, held his hand out to shake.

“Dude. No,” Noah insists and firmly high-fives him instead.

Adam’s laugh is curt and he looks almost surprised by it and Noah feels a flush of warm affection for him. He wishes his dad could see him now. All those talks about Noah throwing his life away, how he was humiliating the family name, no one would be able to love him.

As Ronan clapped his shoulder that feels like an apology for earlier and Gansey appealed his case to get pizza for apparently the third night in the row while Adam rolled his eyes skyward, Noah finds himself grinning.

_Fuck off, Dad._

\--

Noah is walking back to his dorm after being dropped by Ronan, stomach full of pizza and cheeks aching, when he receives a call.

 _Mommacita_ flashes across the screen and he hurriedly answers it.

“Hey!”

The line is quiet before someone speaks who is very much not his mom. Noah’s stomach plummets and suddenly it’s hard to breathe.

“Hello.”

“Dad?”

“Yes. I was just calling to talk to you.”

Every single one of their fights had started with that one line. Noah steels himself.

“About what.”

“You need to give up this act. You’re putting an unnecessary burden on your family with your actions. Come home and we can fix this entire mess before it gets out of hand.”

Noah presses a hand hard over his mouth and breathes, once, twice, before speaking. He’s going to throw up.

“I’m not going to talk to you about his.”

“Don’t you -”

“No, _you_ don’t. I thought you sent me all the way out here to get rid of me? Why don’t you just leave me alone,” Noah snarls and hangs up, fingers shaking, and fuck, he’s having a panic attack in the middle of a hallway.

He runs back to his room and slams his door and buries underneath himself his blankets and screams. This was all wrong. Everything was wrong and it was Noah’s fault and if he just wasn’t such a fuck up, maybe he’d be back home with his mom and little sister.

“Noah?”

Whelk. Movie night. Everything was happening so fast.

Noah allows himself one more low groan before smoothing out his features and answering the door. Whelk is dressed in a simple hoodie and sweatpants, shoulders broad and arms thick.

He skims over Noah slowly, before jerking a thumb over his shoulder to his open door.

“Movie night?”

Noah forces himself to smile. “Hell yeah.”

\--

  
Noah reacts to the movie as he normally does. Yelping at the jump scares, hissing at the suspension, throwing himself at Whelk whenever something sad happens. He’s normal.

Whelk seems to sense something is a little off because he lets Noah burrow himself into his side and doesn’t complain like he usually would. In fact, if Noah thought about it, he hadn’t complained about Noah’s touchiness in a good while. It was progress.

The movie ends and Noah groans.

“I hate that movie.”

Whelk’s hand rests on the back of his head and it’s a strangely intimate gesture. Usually he just lets Noah all over him but doesn’t touch him back.

“You can pick out the next one then,” Whelk says.

“Good,” Noah yawns and sits up so he can pop his back. Whelk’s hand doesn’t move away.

There’s something hanging in the air, a heavy smog that makes Noah want to squirm. Whelks’ eyes are practically boring into the side of his head.

It’s no surprise when Whelk leans forward and turns Noah’s head so he can cover his mouth with his own. But Noah’s heart is still sent to overdrive all the same.

Whelk kisses him, hard, teeth catching on his bottom lip and tongue running over his gums. He wraps both of his large hands around the back of Noah’s neck and pulls him closer, closer, until Noah is basically seated on his lap and arms wrapped around his neck.

Noah has kissed before - boys and girls. There’s no differentiation in his opinion. Noah likes to kiss and be kissed. And Whelk is a very good kisser.

They part, breathing heavily, but Whelk just skims down to his neck and starts to mouth at the sensitive skin of his pulse. Noah groans, low in his throat, and digs his hands into the thickness of Whelk’s hair and pulls.

He should stop this before it got out of hand. There’s a secret he needs to tell Whelk, to come clean to him and hope for the best, but with Whelk sucking a bruise on the junction of his shoulder and neck, all he can vocalize is another hoarse noise.

It’ll just be this, for tonight. I’ll tell him later, Noah thinks and pulls Whelk’s head up to kiss him.

When Noah stumbles back to his dorm, lips red and two hickeys forming on his neck, he collapses into bed and presses his face into his pillow.

_Come home and we can fix this entire mess before it gets out of hand._

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch ur boy on [tumblr](http://sevenyearsdead.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please leave a comment/kudo! also, sorry if there are any mistakes!


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